Vilnius holds anti-communism forum

VILNIUS - The words were strong and the emotions were high as an
international congress in Vilnius claimed that communists killed 100
million people throughout the world and appealed to the United
Nations and all democratic countries to create a special tribunal for
the prosecution of communist criminals.

Witnesses from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Hungary and other Central
European countries spoke about their personal suffering from
communist repression. Lithuanian lawyer Vytautas Zabiela said that
the process would have only moral, not legal consequences. Lech
Walesa, the former president of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize
recipient, attended the congress held June 12-14. He received the
Nobel Peace Prize for fighting against the communist regime when he
was the leader of the Polish independent Solidarity trade unions.

"More people were killed in peace time than during two world wars in
this part of the world," Walesa said about communist terror.

The congress participants, victims of communist repression,
politicians, political scientists and lawyers from 23 countries, said
that Vilnius is a symbolic place for such an anti-communist forum.
Lithuania lost one-third of its population during Soviet occupation
because of killings, deportations and forced emigration, said Povilas
Jakucionis, chairman of the Lithuanian Political Prisoners and
Deportees Union. This union and three similar Lithuanian
organizations of victims of communism organized the congress.

"Communism is the biggest criminal ideology in the world, and it
should be forbidden as Nazi ideology was," Jakucionis said.

Felix Krasavin, a Soviet-time political prisoner now living in
Israel, paid tribute to Lithuania's role in crushing communism.

"I'm representing former Russian political prisoners. It is an honor
for us, now living in Australia, the United States, Israel, to
participate in the fight against a still not dead and dangerous
animal," Krasavin said about communism.

He spoke in the Vilnius Sport Arena for some 5,000 former Lithuanian
political prisoners. Tears appeared in his eyes. Krasavin seemed to
be touched by the warm applause, and his speech waxed a mite
emotional.

He made a controversial comparison between Nazism and communism.

"Soviet fascism killed many more people than its German brother. The
lies of Soviet fascism were much bigger than those of German
fascism," Krasavin said.

It is a shame that communist crimes are not included in school
textbooks in New York, Buenos Aires or Israel, and this situation
should be changed, said Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris.

Ariel Cohen, a researcher of Russian politics from the United States,
said that communist crimes should be made as known to the world as
the Holocaust is known now.

Walesa said that the West does not care about communist crimes.
Nazism was spread more westwards, and it is why the West concentrates
on Nazi crimes, he said.

One of the most honorable guests of the congress was Sergey Kovalev,
Russian MP. He had direct contacts with Lithuania when he was a
Soviet-time Moscow dissident.

Now Kovalev took opportunity to visit the Vilnius KGB jail where he
was imprisoned in 1974-1975. He was sentenced for co-operation with
the underground newspaper Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic
Church. His former jail, on the crossroads of Gedimino and Auku
streets, is the Museum of Genocide Victims now.

Tatyana Yankelevich, who lives in the United States, assisted Kovalev
in his nostalgic excursion. Yankelevich's mother, Yelena Boner,
received the Nobel Peace Prize for her husband Andrey Sakharov during
Kovalev's trial in Vilnius.

Lithuanian dissident and Jewish activist Eitan Finkelstein made
calls to Yankelevich in Moscow and reported about the trial to
Yankelevich who passed this information by phone to her mother who
spread the news about Kovalev in Oslo.

On June 12, Kovalev spoke in the Lithuanian Parliament at the opening
of the anti-communist congress.

"It is not true that nations do not commit crimes. The Germans and we
should understand it. If we don't understand our guilt, we can't
expect victory over cannibalistic ideologies. We went to
demonstrations in the 1930s supporting mass killings. We are guilty,
our Western neighbors. It is my nation that occupied the Baltic
countries," Kovalev said adding, "Please, forgive us."

Kovalev criticized Western politics of appeasement towards the
current Kremlin rulers. Such politics encourage anti-democratic
forces in Moscow, said Kovalev.

"[U.S. President Bill] Clinton and [German Chancellor Helmut] Kohl
could have stopped the first campaign in Chechnya, not within two
years but within two months. But they guarded the reputation of
[Russian President Boris] Yeltsin. Now we have a KGB colonel leading
the state," Kovalev said, referring to current Russian President
Vladimir Putin.

He predicted that the totalitarian tendencies of the Kremlin will
grow in the next 10 years. However, Kovalev said he hoped that after
15 years, when a new Russian generation comes to power, Russia will
start to move towards its own "europization."

Walesa pointed to the current anti-democratic tendencies in Moscow
and sadly joked that Kovalev should ask for political asylum in
Lithuania.

Zenon Pozniak, the leader of the opposition Belarusian National
Front, also attended.

"Communism is just a form of Russian imperialism," said Pozniak, who
received asylum in the United States two years ago and runs his
organization in Belarus from abroad. According to him, there are
forces fighting against Russian imperialism in Belarus, but there is
no strong democratic opposition in Russia itself.

"The world does not want to hear about communist crimes. Some say
that when we speak against communism, we speak against Russia. In
contrary, we speak in favor of a democratic Russia. We should not
look at Russia as a hopeless state, though on its behalf crimes are
being committed in the Caucasus. Let us trust in the future of Russia
and Belarus," Lithuanian Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis
said.